Kylie Minogue said she "stripped herself of being Kylie" for her role in a new sci-fi fantasy.

The Aussie pop star appears in French director Leos Carax's surreal offering Holy Motors and said she wanted to be as open as possible for the role.

Speaking at the Cannes film festival, she said: "It felt good to be back on set.

"I took it very seriously, I basically banned my entire entourage of coming with me. I kind of stripped myself of being Kylie and wanted to go back to being as basic as possible and pretty much be a blank canvas for Leos."

Holy Motors follows a man, played by Denis Lavant, who travels between multiple parallel lives, occupying various roles. At one point he's a monstrous creature that gate-crashes a photo shoot and kidnaps a model (Eva Mendes).

Asked by a reporter what he wanted this scene to say to the public, Carax said: "I don't know. Who is the public? All I know is they are a bunch of people who will be dead very soon. I don't make public films, I make private films. I invite whoever wants to come and see it."

Former Neighbours actress Kylie said working on the movie was a "very open, very beautiful experience".

"Obviously, I'm kind of used to a different world which is the pop music world, but I began acting at the start of my career so it was nice to come back to that," she said.

"There was a song in the film and I think I said to Leos: 'Oh, so that will be pre-recorded and then we'll mime it in the scene?' And he said: 'No, we'll do it live in the scene', and that was just magic to me.

"I don't think that happens very often so it really was a chance to combine the two, but in a way to try to take everything away and just be as open as I could."